Scottish ministers have been unable to price their promise to take over the
state pension after independence despite publishing a report confirming
payments from the UK Government would cease.

The Scottish Government unveiled its long-awaited blueprint for pensions after separation promising to pay £160 per week from 2016 and holding out the possibility of a lower state retirement age.

Amid concerns about the impact of Scotland’s more rapidly ageing population on pension costs, the document proposed attracting more immigrants to increase the number of taxpaying workers.

Scots who retired after independence would not receive a standard amount, with each payment calculated according to the proportion of their careers that they had paid tax to the UK and a separate Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy First Minister, insisted that the plans were affordable but was unable to provide any costings for the proposal to have a lower state pension age than the UK.

Neither did the 135-page document contain any long-term projections for the overall costs of pensions in a separate Scotland, prompting heavy criticism from experts and opposition parties that voters deserved more detail.

The report also confirmed that EU regulations could mean cross-Border companies having to make good multi-billion pound deficits in their pension schemes straight after independence.

It was published the day after the Department of Work and Pensions warned failing to increase the state pension age would cost a separate Scotland £6 billion over a decade.

Ronnie Bowie, a senior partner with pension consultancy Hymans Robertson, said the bulk of the document merely described how the UK system works without making any ideas for improvements.

“They seem to be saying ‘it’s a terrible system but actually we’re going to copy most of it.’ It doesn’t really tell us anything about pensions in an independent Scotland,” he said.

“There’s no costs and lots of presumptions like the UK will agree a deal for Scotland to use sterling and the EU will gloss over the cross-Border rules.”

The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries said the document provided only the “outline” of how pensions would be delivered after independence.

Martin Potter, chair of the organisation’s Scottish board, said: “Further data will be needed to enable an evidence based analysis of the policy proposals that the public deserves and more detail on funding is needed in order that it may make an informed vote.”

The report said a separate Scotland would go along with the UK’s plans to increase the state pension age to 66 by 2020 in an attempt to curtail the increasing burden on the taxpayer caused by the ageing population.

However, SNP ministers raised the prospect of not proceeding with the next increase to 67, scheduled to start in 2026, arguing that Scots have shorter life expectancies.

According to a graph in the document, Scotland’s dependency ratio – the number of pensioners and children each worker has to financially support – will increase rapidly from 2026 and overtake the UK’s by 2031.

It said a separate Scotland would have to “increase our working-age population as a share of the overall population” and suggested greater immigration be permitted.

Unveiling the report, Ms Sturgeon said: “Successive UK Government decisions have resulted in a pensions crisis. Independence will bring decision-making on pensions home to the Scottish Parliament and provide the opportunity to do things differently and better.”

But a UK Government spokesman said: “Nowhere in this paper is there a price tag for how much this new Scottish pensions system would cost people in Scotland.

“Costings and difficult questions are glossed over in the rush to make a ‘guarantee’ that pensions will still be paid on time.”